Teaching Your Children About Money
Education isn't so much about content delivery as it is imparting useful principles to your child. Show your kid how things are run at your restaurant. Involve them in your shopping excursions for provisions. Take them along with you to charitable events.

Beyond boosting their paper qualifications, these practical lessons, or rather, critical thinking skills, will stay with your children throughout life and impact their behavior towards money.

Robert Kiyosaki grew up to become one of the world's most successful financial authors, largely due to his humble head start: under the tutelage of his best friend's “rich dad”, who thought it fit to throw him his first job at a tender age as well as mentor the boy.

Be An Adult, Mentor Your Child.

STAGE 1: Say your boy, Hassan, is starting primary school soon. You decide to give him a weekly allowance of RM10. Way before he embarks on this scary new journey, teach Hassan the following basics:

The difference between 1, 5 or 10 Ringgit and how much it can purchase.

• How to count for change. Start by collecting loose change and let Hassan count.

• Lost his money? It's his responsibility. Teach Hassan to be careful with his  money and that you won't reimburse him for carelessness.

• We don't mint money! Don't be afraid to explain to Hassan how much things  cost, and how much work you put into buying them, so that he knows that nothing comes free.

• Need or want? Hassan wants the bright yellow “Lamborghini” mini toy car.  He also needs a new times-table guide book. Give him a choice. Tell him that  the Lamborghini can wait and teach him how to differentiate between a need and  want.

STAGE 2: Hassan is now a metre taller and entering secondary school. His responsibilities, needs and mobile bills are increasing. Firstly, you need to reevaluate his allowance based on his growing expenses and your income, and make sure he knows how to live within his means. Encourage him to:

• Save a portion of his allowance for his own desired purchases. By doing so, Hassan will see how much work, discipline and patience goes into the saving  process and learn to make prudent financial choices.

• Open his own savings account. Accompany Hassan to the bank and train him to actively participate in making deposits.

• Give to charity. For the price of a simple can of Coke, you could keep a hungry  child in Africa alive for one more day. Imagine. So little can go such a long way. Always remind your teen of his privileged place in life and teach him the value of  giving to  worthy causes.

• Join family discussions about finances. Immunity doesn't encourage maturity. Engage your child in the family's talks about finances, plus expose him to local and national financial news updates, etc.
• Take up a part-time job during long school breaks. One of the best ways of   teaching your teen the value of money is making him work for it. A part-time job not only teaches Hassan responsibility, it also helps him build his cash reserve to make bigger purchases in the future.